BigDog944

Well said, TB. I had almost no expectation of winning this tournament when I entered. However, I did want some kind of guage as to my current level of ability. The question of this thread is, did I get that? The answer seems to be, yes, but with a large margin of error, which in my case seems to have been on the negative side. Ultimately it would be great if a system can be found that reduces that margin of error.

It's coming! I just got out of bed here on the West Coast! Stumbling to my laptop to check out this thread is a sad indication of where my life has lead me to, but I still have hope for the future! Expect your turn in the next couple of hours. Now, back on topic...

Very good work, Treeburst, GreenAsJade, Malakovski and all contributors! I'm reading this thread with fascination. <edit for spelling "fascination"> [ June 15, 2005, 10:04 AM: Message edited by: BigDog944 ]

Thanks, dieseltaylor! Your post has provided a salve to my wounded pride! I hope everyone gets a chance to read my AAR for the Maleme battle. Too much hope for the Axis side rested on the airplane actually showing up, I think.

All in a day's work! :cool: A DosBox tip: Ctrl-F10 will release the mouse if it is trapped in the DOS window. [ June 08, 2005, 01:30 PM: Message edited by: BigDog944 ]

Many thanks, John C! Not wanting to compete with you... But DosBox solves all the problems in one step. Memory management, installing DOS, no hardware modifications required, slowing down the speed of todays fast CPUs for yesterday's games, emulating a Soundblaster sound card, etc. I gotta do my bit to evangelise Free Software! :cool: [ June 08, 2005, 12:42 PM: Message edited by: BigDog944 ]

After catching this thread, I downloaded and played Clash of Steel using "DosBox" on my Xandros Linux laptop. It works brilliantly! Only issue I had was around turn three the game asked some copy protection questions, asking for a specific word from the manual, which I don't have! When my two guesses were wrong it dropped me out of the game. I've got to say that the Free Software camp is your best bet for playing old DOS games. For backward DOS compatibility it is far superior to anything Microsoft can offer these days. You can run DosBox under Windows or the Mac as well as Linux, but I've never tried on anything but Linux. Find everything you need here... http://dosbox.sourceforge.net BTW: Can anyone point me to a way to get around the copy protection questions? Since the publisher allows the game to be downloaded for free from UnderDogs, I can't imagine that they object to people still playing it...

Great thread. Thanks everyone, and especially tom_w and Steve! First off, I agree with Steve that we have been exceptionally spoiled by the Combat Mission games. The depth and breadth achieved may be a long time coming before it is equalled in another game. BFC has earned my loyalty and money because of their hard work and excellence. The problem I have with the module system as Steve has described it though, is that it almost assures that any future CMx2 game released by BFC will never again cover the breadth of CMBB or CMAK. Have they not lost something here? I understand that they are saying it is not economically viable to produce the same breadth in future games, nor even possible without Steve and/or Charles going insane! By these facts alone, BFC is admitting that they will never match CMx1 in breadth, and so they are betting everything on having superior depth to CMx2, and thus when taking depth and breadth together CMx2 will be the superior game. My point: Is it possible for BFC to open the door to additions in the breadth department to 3rd party modders and developers? The model I'm thinking of is how 1C:Maddox games handle additions to the IL-2 Sturmovik line. What started as a study sim of Eastern Front air combat has over the years turned into a very, very broad WW2 flight sim. The wonderful thing is that a number of the additional planes and variations added over the years have come from third party modellers. They create the 3D models of the planes, and the ones that match 1C:Maddox's quality standards are compiled into the closed game engine for release in a patch. The strength of doing it this way as opposed to allowing models to be directly imported into the game by the users is that by going through 1C:Maddox and only released as a patch is that the quality and accuracy is always high, and every player of the game has exactly the same plane data, thus eliminating "cheating." Could something like this be done by BFC for CMx2? One of the issues with the way 1C:Maddox does it is they tend to release their add-ons as free patches, which isn't great on a financial level for the game developer (it rocks for me!). They do have major releases sold in boxes (AEP, Pacific Fighters), but a large portion of the game content has been added for free. Is there not a way for BFC to take the best of both business methods and combine them? For example, the CM community has a number of very talented artists and many knowledgable WW2 grogs. If they were informed about what was required to add a new vehicle or other unit to the CMx2 engine, they could do the modelling, create the skin art, collect all the required data and then submit this to BFC. When BFC has enough new content, they could produce a new module that they could either sell, or give away for free (or at nominal cost) as a gift of appreciation to the community. Of course BFC would need to "direct" this creative effort somewhat, in terms of saying "Modders, don't waste your time on Normandy Commonwealth kit, that's our territory." or "Norway 1939 is fair game!" I hope I've been clear enough to get my idea across. I think if BFC followed a path like this over the next number of years, we'd eventually be gifted with a game that exceeds the CMx1 series in both breadth and depth. We'd all be in gaming heaven!

Great thread. Thanks everyone, and especially tom_w and Steve! First off, I agree with Steve that we have been exceptionally spoiled by the Combat Mission games. The depth and breadth achieved may be a long time coming before it is equalled in another game. BFC has earned my loyalty and money because of their hard work and excellence. The problem I have with the module system as Steve has described it though, is that it almost assures that any future CMx2 game released by BFC will never again cover the breadth of CMBB or CMAK. Have they not lost something here? I understand that they are saying it is not economically viable to produce the same breadth in future games, nor even possible without Steve and/or Charles going insane! By these facts alone, BFC is admitting that they will never match CMx1 in breadth, and so they are betting everything on having superior depth to CMx2, and thus when taking depth and breadth together CMx2 will be the superior game. My point: Is it possible for BFC to open the door to additions in the breadth department to 3rd party modders and developers? The model I'm thinking of is how 1C:Maddox games handle additions to the IL-2 Sturmovik line. What started as a study sim of Eastern Front air combat has over the years turned into a very, very broad WW2 flight sim. The wonderful thing is that a number of the additional planes and variations added over the years have come from third party modellers. They create the 3D models of the planes, and the ones that match 1C:Maddox's quality standards are compiled into the closed game engine for release in a patch. The strength of doing it this way as opposed to allowing models to be directly imported into the game by the users is that by going through 1C:Maddox and only released as a patch is that the quality and accuracy is always high, and every player of the game has exactly the same plane data, thus eliminating "cheating." Could something like this be done by BFC for CMx2? One of the issues with the way 1C:Maddox does it is they tend to release their add-ons as free patches, which isn't great on a financial level for the game developer (it rocks for me!). They do have major releases sold in boxes (AEP, Pacific Fighters), but a large portion of the game content has been added for free. Is there not a way for BFC to take the best of both business methods and combine them? For example, the CM community has a number of very talented artists and many knowledgable WW2 grogs. If they were informed about what was required to add a new vehicle or other unit to the CMx2 engine, they could do the modelling, create the skin art, collect all the required data and then submit this to BFC. When BFC has enough new content, they could produce a new module that they could either sell, or give away for free (or at nominal cost) as a gift of appreciation to the community. Of course BFC would need to "direct" this creative effort somewhat, in terms of saying "Modders, don't waste your time on Normandy Commonwealth kit, that's our territory." or "Norway 1939 is fair game!" I hope I've been clear enough to get my idea across. I think if BFC followed a path like this over the next number of years, we'd eventually be gifted with a game that exceeds the CMx1 series in both breadth and depth. We'd all be in gaming heaven!

Yeah, me too! Except for it has to be labelled as "Huge", but not actually play like that.

AcePilot You should now have all of my AAR's in your mailbox.

I'm using version 1.07, patched up from the original version 1.0. I'm also using some unit graphics and UI mods that I've cobbled together.

Mine shows all national borders and units, as you can see here: [ May 26, 2005, 01:03 PM: Message edited by: BigDog944 ]

I love reading AARs. Yours was a nice mix of what happened in the game with a fantasy element of the soldiers talking. Krautman, please do many more! It may prompt me to post one of mine...

What about that Linux port I've been waiting for?

Or try something like http://www.cmmc2.org or http://www.onionwars.net

What FoW option were you playing with? If Fog of War is turned off, does the AI automatically spot all your units?

Resent you the turn file 21, first sent on the 21st.

@Kingfish and Group 4 Anyone know the status of PeterK? He has now fallen very far behind on his turns (my battle against him has only reached the end of the setup phase). If he's to be replaced, now would be a good time.

Not for some time. I'm have no idea what's up with this guy. </font>

a1steaks I've tried sending you my setup a couple of times, and just tried again now (5pm PST, 15/02). It should be arriving via my netscape account (unfortunately your pacbell email address filters out my email server), so check your spam folder for it!

Just an announcement for my Group 4 opponents, in case the email I sent didn't get to you... I'm having some problems with my ISP, and so am using dhorkoff(at)netscape.net as a temporary email address. I'll inform everyone when I'm back to my permanent one. By the way, I'm in the tournament as BigDog, but as you can see my BFC forum ID is BigDog944. Someone's already got BigDog on the BFC forums, but as far as I can tell he hasn't posted since 2001. =\ Anyway, if it matters, KingFish, can you please update my info on the RoW site to be BigDog944? Thanks.

You could also try OnionWars at http://www.onionwars.net . Unlike CMMC2, this one actually has a pulse and is a load of fun! CMMC2 may one day get going again, but unless you would like to join the game as a GM, you'll likely find yourself wondering what the point is. Having said that, the CMMC2 site is a good source of historical information and Combat Mission stuff, a lot of which you can only access by joining the campaign. One thing is that OnionWars IV is in full swing (likely about half way through the total war), but is still taking on players. OnionWars V by my guess will be starting around the end of 2005.

JersyJohn Yes, and yes. The stakes can get pretty high sometimes, even to the point of the risk of death. I mean, can any of us here imagine what it would be like living in Nazi Germany and having serious internal questions about whether you agree with Hitler and his policies? Who among us would speak up, when to speak up would mean certain death? To bring this back somewhere near the topic of this thread, who here simply stands for themselves, without the need to find approval or validation from (nor denegrate) other members of this or any other forum? That, my friend, is what I believe to be the doorway to greatness.

To my mind, the classic movie for showing a group mind in action is "Lord of the Flies." Perhaps the movie that best demonstrates how you can choose to not participate is "Schindler's List." However, I've never seen "Village of the Damned."